Third in a series
Re “‘Some People Think Government and Bloat. I Don’t See Us That Way’”
Resuming the conversation with Fire Chief Chris Sellers over how the department is operating at its leanest acceptable level while compiling $1.5 million annually in overtime payments:
“Here we sit in 2012,” Mr. Sellers was saying, “with what I believe is the absolute minimum staffing to provide the services to this community that I think they expect from us.
“We do our absolute best to do that.
“It’s funny that we are talking today because this morning at 9:30, we were conducting our platoon evaluations. This is the last shift today – it’s based on a hazardous materials incident with the victim down. They go in. They make a rescue. They do a decontamination process.”
Suddenly, said the fire chief, it became dizzyingly busy.
“As they were getting ready to start, they got a call,” Mr. Sellers said.
“Now here it is just two hours later, and we have had 10 calls – for a variety of reasons. We have cruised out and about, everywhere, going from call to call to call. They involved wires down, a traffic accidents, things that require paramedics, require engine companies, require truck companies – everything down to a child locked in a vehicle.
“I share that because our days … at times, calls come in flurries if activities. And so we have a minimum number of people on our rigs.
Compare Them to Us
“When we look at surrounding cities, whether it be L.A. City, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, those are our Area A cities. They all have four-person staffing on their engines. We have three. When they get a structure fire call in Los Angeles City, they send a minimum of 27 people. That is what they feel they need to send. L.A. County sends 25 people. Beverly Hills sends 24 people. Culver City sends 18, if all 18 are available because that’s all we have got.
“I say ‘if they are available’ because the model we use, because of our three-person staffing, we need to take one of our rescues that’s the closest and available, and we assign it to support those engine companies.
“Those rescues,” the chief said, “transport a lot of patients every year to hospitals. We go on about 3600 medical calls a year. When we transport patients, about 62 percent are transported out of the city. That may be as far away as UCLA, Cedars, St. John’s. It puts them out and unavailable to the community at that time.
“That’s what the previous chiefs and I have been doing, cutting our budgets.
“This has not been a time to be at the necessary staffing we feel we need,” Mr. Sellers said.
“Chiefs have been saying for years, ‘We need more people. We need more staffing, based on our call volume, based on the services we are doing, based on our rescues out of the city. This is our challenge.”
(To be continued)
